


"Bottle of Red"

by remembertowrite



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, In which Nic is a mastermind of a plot to save Alex from her stalkers, On the Run, Set during and after 306, Sexual Tension, Which involves pretending she and Strand are dating, as much as I can think I'm funny lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28704246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembertowrite/pseuds/remembertowrite
Summary: She went back to the joke email Nic had sent. New script for the next episode. Needs to be convincing, please prep before we record. And then the attached document with the proposed scripted portions between Nic and her, along with some ad reads for that week.Her eyes glanced back up to the top of the message. Nic had copied Richard on the message.Rated T for swears.
Relationships: Alex Reagan/Richard Strand
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	"Bottle of Red"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdyvixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdyvixen/gifts).



> Happy (belated) PNWS holiday exchange, nerdyvixen! I'm sorry this is a day late. I hope this is a fun read, I had fun writing it!

Alex almost gagged on her coffee as she walked quickly from the local Starbucks on her way to the studio. The bitter heat of it burned her tongue and she nearly choked. She had to pull into the doorway of a local business to not block the morning commuters walking along the sidewalk.

Had she just read that right? _This_ was Nic’s grand plan to protect her from the stalker that video taped her in her apartment? She’d been hiding out at an undisclosed motel for a few days, too amped up to sleep and too scared to think straight.

Alex looked back at her phone, scrolling through the proposed script again. She cracked a smile for the first time in weeks.

It was sweet of Nic, really, to try and cheer her up with this joke. Alex breathed out a sigh of relief. That had to be it.

_Nice script lol_ , she texted Nic. _Can you send me the real script so I can start going over it in the studio this morning?_

She saw the three dots pop to indicate that Nic was typing a response. They disappeared, then reappeared, and disappeared again. She stared at her messaging app impatiently.

_We can go over it when you get in_ , Nic responded eventually. After a pause, he sent a winky face in a new message.

The world was literally about to end, and Nic could still joke around. Some things just didn’t change.

Alex shut her phone off and tucked it in her jacket pocket, braving the tide of the morning commuters streaming up and down the sidewalk. When she arrived at work, she dropped her messenger bag onto one of the chairs in her office and collapsed into her main office chair, pulling open her laptop to check her emails for the new script. The bright LEDs of the laptop glinted painfully into her sleep-deprived eyes.

She scrolled through her inbox. No new pages from Nic. Weird.

She went back to the joke email Nic had sent. _New script for the next episode. Needs to be convincing, please prep before we record_. And then the attached document with the proposed scripted portions between Nic and her, along with some ad reads for that week.

Her eyes glanced back up to the top of the message. Nic had copied Richard on the message.

He’d copied Richard.

Oh, fuck.

She bolted upright out of her chair and all but sprinted across the hall to Nic’s office, tearing off his headphones.

“You can’t be serious, Nic! _‘Romantic feelings for Strand’_? I’m - I can’t believe - ”

Nic grinned at her in his shit-eating way. Trademark Nic.

“Alex, Alex - people will believe it, we can keep you safe - ”

“And you _copied_ Richard on the email? NIC!”

Her face felt flushed, her heart hammering away. She was sweating.

“‘Richard’?” He waggled his eyebrows and continued to grin at her. “I’ve got some more pages you’re going to love, Alex.” He gestured to his computer screen.

The edges of her vision blurred somewhere around the phrase _bottle of red_. This felt like when her mom chaperoned at the high school prom and had come over to remind her and her date to leave room for Jesus.

“Look it over, in fifteen I’ll meet you in studio B to record the segment I sent you this morning.”

Well, she didn’t need to worry about her stalker or her demons anymore, because she was going to die from embarrassment at this very moment. She’d melt into a puddle of formerly renowned journalist now banging her significantly older subject.

Nic stood up and patted her on the shoulder. His look hardened. “This is going to work, Alex. We’re going to keep you safe.”

“But Strand - ”

“Dr. Strand is on board. I already talked to him about it. No more creeps following you around. I promise, Alex.”

Richard already knew? 

“And don’t worry about your reputation as a reporter, Terry and I’ve got your back. What matters is we get people off your scent.” He smiled at her again, in that same sort of ‘take a whiff of what I’m smoking and calm down, bro’ way he’d smiled on her first day on the job. 

“What did he say about it?” she asked before she knew the words had left her mouth.

Nic chuckled. “I’ll spare you the full details, but he said something about it being ‘most illuminating.’”

“I hate you, Nic.”

“I love you too, Alex.”

###

“What if?” Alex asked him, drawing on her semester of drama at the University of Washington. She thought she sounded pretty convincing, and definitely not at all like she was dying at all inside trying to pull off the charade of pretending to fall madly in love with and run away with Richard. 

She’d asked Nic where in his little fantasy he thought they’d run off to.

“Bahamas are always lovely this time of year,” Nic had told her while Terry and Paul smiled over his shoulder. It was all very valiant of them to do this. Valiant and fucking stupid. It’d never work. She and Richard? It was preposterous. Listeners, and Daiva Corp, and the Cult of Tiamat, they’d all see through it.

“Then let’s be sure to have dinner before I leave.” Richard paused. “I’ll cook.”

Alex wanted to roll her eyes. Nic thought a man who could cook was god’s gift to women. Richard had cooked for her somewhat regularly during their marathon sessions of investigating their way through the documents left in Richard’s father’s house in Seattle. Richard made mediocre tacos. His salmon and asparagus were a lot better. But by all things holy did Richard love his garlic.

“Richard,” she parroted from the script, trying her darndest not to stare at Richard’s towering torso sitting across from her in the booth, his ears swallowed up in the state of the art headphones. She noticed he could barely bring himself to look at her either.

She was for sure booting Nic off her holiday card list this year.

“Yes?” Richard asked back, his tone perfectly serious, as if he discussed cooking for and running away with any of his coworkers on a random Tuesday.

“What if we just - what if we just - ” she blew air out of her mouth in frustration, ruffling the strands of hair on her forehead.

Alex turned to look at Nic on the other side of the glass.

“Nic, this is ridiculous. This isn’t going to work.”

Nic pressed the button to activate the talkback mic. 

“Come on, Alex, we don’t have a ton of time. I want to get this last part recorded and it all edited by the time you’re driving out of here.”

Her eyes flicked over to Richard’s face. His expression, as usual, was unreadable. She imagined him uncomfortable in his ‘stick up the ass’ kind of way. Any display of discomfort would have caused a snort to erupt from her nose. If only he would be so kind.

Richard held out his hand as if gesturing for her to continue.

“Alex,” he said, his deep voice more thick and velvety than it had any right to be.

“Okay, okay.” She took a deep breath.

“From the last line, again,” Nic ordered through the talkback mic.

Alex regained her composure, or at least she hoped so. Maybe her face was bright red, actually.

She couldn’t look at Richard.

“What if we just - go?”

###

Alex’s forehead rested against the cool car window. She watched as lights zipped by.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said. Maybe it was to Richard, maybe it was to no one in particular. Maybe it was to the universe, a plea to whatever higher power would listen that she could be safe and not have to worry about stalkers filming her in her sleep.

Even if this joke of a plan did work, she felt like she’d never sleep again.

She heard Richard’s soft, breathy laugh from the direction of the driver’s seat.

“I’ll concede Nic seems to have a… strong sense of creativity.”

Alex half-laughed, half-groaned. After everything from the past few days, the terror, the embarrassment, the anxiety, Richard’s euphemisms still amused her.

“I know. I _know_. I mean - ‘I’ll cook’? ‘What if we just go’?” She sat back up to face Richard, whose eyes twinkled at her. “And worst of all, ‘ _bottle of red’_? I wanted to die on the spot just saying that.”

“I can’t say any of Nic’s talent lies in writing true-to-life fiction. Some of his movies are truly intolerable.”

Alex laughed in disbelief. “You’ve watched Nic’s old movies?”

“It was Ruby’s idea.” Alex shot him a glance that demanded further elucidation. “When I was staying at the Institute last year. Ruby said I needed a break, that it’d cheer me up, since I love criticizing things.” She caught him eyeing her smirk. “Her words, not mine.”

He turned the right hand signal on, merging into the slow lane to take the next exit. They were getting close to the inn they’d sleep at tonight. They’d crossed the US-Canadian border hours again, driving up to retreat to Nic’s second home in Vancouver for a while.

“He’s a truly terrible writer, but don’t tell him I said that,” Alex laughed. “I mean, us? Together? Holy shit. I mean, really.”

Richard’s lips thinned, almost pulling back in pain. He let her continue laughing and disparaging her closest friend’s writing skills as he drove the car silently along the quiet black roads, finally pulling into the small gravel parking lot of a charmingly itty bitty inn.

At last, he shifted the car into park and turned the key, killing the rumble of the engine. They sat in companionable silence, and Alex took a breath, finally feeling like she’d made it to safety.

“Alex,” Richard said delicately. His normally stoic face betrayed a vulnerability she hadn’t seen from him since the night he’d last talked to Coralee and learned the truth of his sham of a marriage. They’d driven and talked for hours and hours. “What if Nic didn’t get all of it wrong?”

Alex rubbed her eyes, dying for a chance to collapse onto a half-decent mattress. Maybe she’d even get two hours of sleep tonight.

“What do you mean?” she asked through a yawn.

Richard turned towards her, shifting over the center console to draw near her. He cupped her face hesitantly.

“I’m sorry it was so tough to get through. I just want you to be safe.”

The way he looked at her then, like he saw her inside and out, like he’d drop everything just to keep her safe. Like he’d say no to the opportunity to find out all about his past and save his wife, like he’d leave behind his whole life just to see her happy. Like he’d happily escort her across the border and stow away with her for months, like he’d give up his life in Chicago to live in a house of a man he hated just to work with her a little more.

Like he’d do anything to split that bottle of red with her for real.

“Oh,” she said, stupidly. A professional journalist who observes changes in her environment and documents everything, and she’d missed this.

“Yes,” he said, kissing the back of her hand.

“I guess we have some things to talk about then,” she responded. “You could, um. Join me in my room to, uh. Chat about stuff?”

He smiled at her sheepishly then.

“That’s good, because, well. Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t ask for separate rooms this time?”


End file.
